Using Google Webmaster Tools To Best Use

Written by Melanie Ullman

It's been a while since I updated this blog, but I'll try and get back to a regular routine.

When you're trying to rank your landing page, whether it's for PPC or simply to get organic search traffic to an offer page, backlinking is the key. In short, the more back links you get, the higher you will go in the SERPs. Now of course this is a relative thing. Trying to rank against strong "authority sites" that have high Pagerank and thousands of backlinks can be an exercise in futility. But generally speaking, the more links, the better your site will do.

But all back links aren't created equally. Links from strong sites, those with a high Page rank, are worth more to your site than those with lower rank. It's actually the passing of this "link juice" that gives your target site it's boost. This means you want higher value links.

Just as important however, perhaps even more pertinently is whether or not Google sees and counts your links. Though they may index nearly every page, not every link they come across counts towards your SERP ranking.

How do you know which is which? That's where Google's Webmaster Tools comes into play. Webmaster Tools was designed to show the webmaster where their links are coming from. As such, you can see which of the backlinks you are taking the time to get are being seen AND counted by Google. If it isn't in Webmaster Tools, it isn't doing your site any good, at least as far as boosting your ranking is concerned.

Another great use for Google's Webmaster Tools is for you to see which links you might be able to take more advantage of. When you see that your links are sticking for instance from your blogs, Squidoo lenses, other sites, etc., you immediately know they are more valuable links.

So why not go back and re-visit those web sites? You might just be able to post more links, or put in links to your other sites. I spend a lot of time in Webmaster Tools. I look to see where my backlinking efforts are paying off, focus further efforts where they count, and reduce the time I put into those that aren't paying me dividends.

Plus I comb through the results always looking for new and better sites to go back to with more links.

It's also worth noting that Webmaster Tools will show you the specific pages where you are linking to. You should make sure to vary your links, vary your anchor text, and don't just link to your home page, but your inner pages as well.

Make Google Webmaster Tools a routine part of your own "site intelligence". You'll find you can spend your time in a more valuable manner, and that you avoid going through the process of building, checking, waiting, checking some more, all for something that won't help you in the long fun anyway.

If you've found some interesting or little-known, little-used tricks that you want to share, make sure you come back here and post them in the comments section. I'll be very appreciative, as will the readers! Plus, you'll get a lot of good Karma points!